Faith Church is scheduled to serve Friday, November 19th, from 1:00-4:00pm and we need a couple more volunteers for this month.
If you have been vaccinated and can mask then please contact Mike Ziegler at [email protected] to sign up to serve. You may also pray and donate items, money, and clean and empty dozen size egg cartons to SOS or in the basket in the narthex.
Since 1988, the SOS Food Bank has served as an ecumenical partnership amongst area churches and non-profits to provide nourishment to our neighbors in need. Faith Church has a long and proud history as one of these partners and there are multiple ways you can contribute to this mission..
If you have been fully vaccinated, we need your help! We need a couple of new volunteers to join our group the third Friday of every month from 1-4pm. While food recipients are required to wear masks, and only two at a time are allowed into the front office where intake occurs, workers in the back where we gather food are not being required to do so. Therefore, we are asking those who have been fully vaccinated, are willing to mask, and feel safe doing so to consider joining our team once a month to help support this work.
If you have NOT yet been fully vaccinated, there are others ways you can help. Just as SOS is fully run by volunteers, it is also fully funded by the same:
*Each family is supplied a Basic Bag of food that includes frozen meats, 1 dozen eggs, flour, rice, sugar, beans, pasta, tomato sauce, oatmeal, and peanut butter. This is then supplemented with canned and baked goods, depending on the number of persons in the family. Each Basic Bag costs approximately $20, which you can donate directly to the food bank at:
SOS Food Bank
P.O. Box 311032
New Braunfels, Texas 78131
*While the food bank is able to stretch dollars further as they purchase food through special arrangements with others in our community, they do still welcome those who prefer to donate food rather than money. Food may be directly donated and dropped off either at the SOS Food Bank (248 Merriweather St.) between 1 and 4pm Monday through Friday or left in the basket in the Narthex of Faith Church where our Faith SOS Team will gather and deliver it for you.
*Egg cartons that are clean and in good shape are needed to help sort the large flats of eggs received into batches of 12. You may also drop these off directly at the food bank or in the basket in the Narthex at Faith.
*Pray. Ask for God’s guidance for the board of directors who lead the organization, blessings for the volunteers who show up to share the work and for those who donate, peace and comfort and avenues to greater food security for the food recipients, and for those who do not yet know this support is available to find their way to SOS as needed.
For those fully vaccinated and willing to mask who wish to volunteer, please contact Mike Ziegler at [email protected]. Thanks for helping us feed our neighbors in safe and thoughtful ways. To learn more about the great work of this mission, go to https://www.sosfoodbank.org/
Mike Ziegler reports that the following information was in the last SOS Board minutes, “We plan to start using the new building on September 8th. There will be a panic button for those in the new building who do not feel safe. Also, board members were reminded that we can always call 911 if we feel threatened.”There is also another number for the food bank, which will ring in both buildings. Once the move into the new building is complete, work will begin on the new storage building.
Sheila Angerer, Janet Sherman, Joe Ward and Pastor Scott worked at the SOS Food Bank on our August Friday. One of the families we helped that day were from Aransas Pass. They are here in New Braunfels because their house burned down. The husband worked landscaping and construction and lost all his tools. His wife is on oxygen and she lost her oxygen machine. They currently are living in a hotel room provided by Salvation Army. SOS was able to provide them with emergency food.
As you may or may not know, the whole “move to a new building” process began when the board realized that our current building is completely inadequate for our growing needs. The wireless internet system does not travel from the back of the building to the front because of the refrigerators and other items sucking the signal away. The front client area is completely inadequate given the need for client privacy during intake, and comfort while they wait for their food. We had to purchase a shed to help store the food we gather at the food drives. Parking is complete chaos. We have to use the church parking across the street to accommodate the cars during board meetings, and park on the street as well. The driveway is inadequate to handle the SA Food Bank trucks so they can do deliveries. Sanitation (ie hand washing and disinfection during these corona virus times) is woefully inadequate in the front area. There are probably more inadequacies but I can’t think of them now.
I hope to show you in future what the space next door will look like when it’s done. In so many ways it will be an improvement over what we have now, especially in the areas of clients’ privacy and comfort. There are separate men’s and women’s bathrooms in the front area. There are several private rooms for client intake and recertification. What I see as a huge benefit will be a “drive through” arrangement so clients can drive their cars around the back and have their bags loaded into their cars in a quick and private manner, then they would drive the rest of the way around the building and out onto the street. This will not happen immediately after closing, but they have a plan to renovate the building quickly and at least get the client intake over to the new building as soon as possible. We will also be building a new warehouse on the other side of the new building to replace the one we’re in now, and use our current building as storage till then. As far as funding, in addition to a loan from Prosperity Bank, we are getting grants for much of the purchase and renovation costs, and the vacant lot on the corner will be sold as soon as feasible for a considerable percentage of the overall cost. The old warehouse lot will also be sold. The realtor who facilitated the sale has donated his fee to save us money. The architect from the SALT team has donated the plans for the new space, and the team will do the renovations at no charge. Other avenues are being considered as well. There will be more information coming, but this is what I know so far. Blessings to all the volunteers while we work through this!
In Faith, Mike Z
P.S. from Pastor Scott:
SOS has staid open during this crisis to help the neediest in our community. Faith UCC staffed it on our usual day on the third Friday of March, March 20th, from 1-4 p.m. SOS provided food for 16 families, many of them coming for the first time to receive an emergency food alotment. We will be back there on Friday, April 17th from 1-4.
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